September is here. We're officially down to less than four weeks left in the season, and in many cases, that means your season is already over. Hey, there's no shame in it – Scott White knocked me out in our Podcast Listeners League last week, if it makes you feel any better.
But you shouldn't just tune out of the MLB season because your team is out of it. That's what quitters do, and you are no quitter. After all, what is an early finish to this season but a chance to get an early edge on your competition for next season? We'll keep recapping every night of MLB action in both the FBT Newsletter and podcasts, but we're also going to spend the next four weeks taking an early look at next season. We'll be looking at big performances and notable news from every day, but we'll be taking the opportunity to spin it ahead to these players' 2027 outlooks even more.
And one of the most important players to do that with is probably Cubs third baseman Alex Bregman. He looked like an absolute lost cause in the first half of the season, so the story on him felt pretty easy to tell: He was a bad fit for Wrigley Field and was nothing more than a fringe Fantasy starter even at the shallowest position in Fantasy.
Well, that doesn't look like it's true anymore, does it? Bregman has authored arguably the biggest comeback story in the game in the second half of the season, and after Monday's three-homer game against the Brewers – his second three-homer game of the season – he's now up to 14 homers since the All-Star break. That's good for the second-most of any hitter in baseball, behind teammate Pete Crow-Armstrong. And while Crow-Armstrong is putting the finishing touches on an MVP season and potentially cementing himself as the No. 1 pick in Fantasy drafts next season, Bregman's fate remains a little unclear.
Because yes, this second-half breakout has been outrageous. But even with that, his OPS for the season is still below .800. A .785 OPS isn't a bad mark, especially for a third baseman, but he's hardly been a superstar all season long. In fact, Bregman was having a pretty miserable season, putting up a .241/.336/.359 line before the All-Star break, with about a 15-homer, 70-run and 65-RBI pace. He has had to play like one of the best hitters in baseball for the past month and a half to even get back to a point where his numbers look respectable.
September is going to play a big role in how he is viewed for 2027, and hey, he's off to a great start. For my part, I don't think it'll make much sense to try to point to the second-half numbers as being indicative of the "real" Bregman, somehow – full-season statistics are more predictive than partial-season ones, after all, and Bregman's second-half struggles from a year ago look like an awfully long time ago, too.
So, I'll be more or less taking Bregman's full-season numbers at face value when looking ahead to 2027. He's on pace to finish as a top-six third baseman, but he needs to keep going through the finish line to get there. If he can, ranking him in that range will make perfect sense. If he struggles in September after this? Well, that'll just drag the season line back down and present the picture of more like a fringe starter again.
There's still a lot for Bregman to prove down the stretch. I don't think we'll ever view him as a Fantasy superstar again, but this stretch does show he is at least capable of doing that for a few months. It didn't look like that was the case two months ago.
Pre-game Lineup Card
Here's what you might have missed from CBSSports.com's MLB coverage in recent days:
Kade Anderson's debut. Kade Anderson came to the majors with a ton of hype. Did he live up to it?
Power Rankings. Can the Brewers finally exorcise their playoff demons?
Mis Business. Dayn Perry breaks down what makes Jacob Misiorowski so dominant, and it's not just the fastball.
Worst-to-first. Which of the 2026 basement dwellers could turn things around and be contenders in 2027? Matt Snyder digs into the biggest disappointments.
Hitting the Wire
The top waiver-wire targets from Monday's action, but first, a quick note: Rosters expand to 28 players today, so we'll see some interesting prospects called up in the coming days. We got a couple of interesting names promoted Monday, so we'll start with them, but there will be more coming:
Ethan Salas, C, Padres (15%) – I mentioned Salas as a possible promotion candidate in this week's waiver-wire column, and sure enough, he'll be joining the team Tuesday when rosters expand. The timing is interesting as both Freddy Fermin and Luis Campusano have been hot since the All-Star break. There isn't an obvious need for Salas, which raises some questions about how much playing time he'll get down the stretch. On the other hand, he's the team's top prospect and a 20-year-old hitting .326/.410/.539 since his promotion to Triple-A, so I have to imagine he'll at least get the chance to prove himself. He projects to be an elite defensive catcher with a solid all-around game as a hitter, and if you're looking for some upside at catcher over the final four weeks, why not add him and see if he can't hit the ground running?
Yohandy Morales, 1B, Nationals (6%) – Morales isn't a highly touted prospect, necessarily, but maybe we need to update our priors in the wake of a breakout season. The 24-year-old is hitting .286/.363/.519 with 25 homers in 104 games at Triple-A on the season, and after struggling with a 30% strikeout rate last season, he is down to 24.4% this time around. If he can keep the strikeout rate around 25%, there is plenty of upside in his bat, as seen by his 91.5 mph average exit velocity and 50.8% hard-hit rate at Triple-A. There isn't necessarily an obvious need in the Nationals lineup at either first or third base, though if they're willing to move on from former top prospect (and perpetual disappointment) Brady House, that could be the path of least resistance.
Walbert Urena, SP, Angels (70%) – Urena was scuffling a bit recently, having allowed a 5.29 ERA in his previous four starts with a ton of walks, so it was really nice to see him right the ship against the Yankees Monday. Urena's velocity was up a bit and he just dominated, allowing just five hits (and zero walks!) over seven innings while striking out eight batters. That doesn't necessarily mean Urena's control troubles are in the past, but he's been solid enough this season to earn the benefit of the doubt, especially when he shows signs of turning things around.
Kodai Senga, RP, Mets (37%) – Senga is very much in uncharted territory with his move to the closer role for the Mets, but he continues to acquit himself very well. He successfully pitched on consecutive days over the weekend, tossing scoreless innings in each appearance, and he made it three times in four days for the first time ever, Monday for the save. He allowed a walk but also recorded a strikeout in an otherwise clean inning and finished his first month as a full-time reliever with a 1.74 ERA, 12 strikeouts, and five walks in 10.1 innings of work. The control is a bit iffy, but it hasn't been unmanageable so far – no outings with multiple walks, for instance – and he's been very effective overall, so I think he's just the Mets closer moving forward.
Three Up, Three Down
Three big performances that have players trending up, and three that have the arrow pointing in the opposite direction.
Three Up
Daylen Lile's breakout is happening now
There's still time for the breakout call to come true, and Lile is doing everything he can to make up for lost time lately. He put up just a .698 OPS in the first half of the season, with decent power and speed numbers, but not enough to make up for a surprisingly disappointing .246 batting average. With two more homers Monday against the Marlins, Lile has already matched his first-half total with 10 homers since the break, and he's got that batting average back up to .282 as well. The power breakout is a big part of the season, as his strikeout rate has actually ticked up a bit in that span. He has made up for that small jump in strikeout rate by simply impacting the ball with significantly more authority, putting up an average exit velocity over 90 mph in both July and August, after being below 88 mph in each of the first three months. It might be just a hot streak, but he's been underperforming his expected stats for much of the year, let alone what he did last season. All told, it looks like he could finish the season with 25-ish homers, 15-ish steals, and pretty solid all-around counting stats, and might be playing his way into top-100 status for 2027.
Ian Seymour has earned our trust
Yeah, the ERA is a little higher than you'd like. He gives up too many homers. That's the only flaw in Seymour's game, and at some point we just have to accept that for who he is. You look at the strikeout rate and you think he should be better than a 4.21 ERA. But it doesn't make sense to hold that against Seymour, who is one of the best per-inning strikeout pitchers in the game and consistently puts up good WHIP numbers thanks to excellent control. If he had a 3.30 ERA, he'd be a borderline ace. He's still a must-start pitcher where he's at.
Aaron Nola keeps rolling
The funny thing about Nola's return to Fantasy relevance is that his stuff has actually rated out slightly worse since July 1 by Stuff+ than it did before. He's overcome that with significantly improved command, and that was on display yet again against the Diamondbacks Monday. He generated just nine whiffs (six on the curveball, naturally), but he tossed five one-run innings in spite of that, and he's now down to a 3.43 ERA in that stretch. When you can't rely on raw stuff to generate easy outs, the margin for error is always slim, but Nola is in a groove right now and I think it makes sense to just keep riding him.
Three Down
Kyle Harrison doesn't look right
On today's FBT podcast, we discussed Harrison's struggles on the road this season, as he got rocked for nine runs in 3.2 innings at Wrigley Field and now has a 5.94 ERA on the road compared to a 1.26 ERA at home for the season. That's a drastic split, and there's certainly something there – Milwaukee is a great place to pitch, especially for a strikeout pitcher these days. But I think it's worth noting that most of his struggles on the road are because of two especially poor starts: Monday's and then one on June 8 in Las Vegas where he gave up eight runs in 2.1 innings. Take those two out of the picture and his road ERA drops to 3.28.
That's not to say there's nothing to be concerned about here with Harrison. His velocity has been down since the forearm injury, and he sat 1.4 down from his season average with his fastball in this one. That's a big deal for a pitcher like Harrison who relies on his fastball this much, so I don't think you have to view him as a must-start pitcher right now. I'd still lean toward starting him against a pretty bad Reds lineup in Cincinnati this weekend, but there's certainly risk here.
George Kirby is no longer must-start
Now with Kirby, I'm more willing to buy into a "He can only pitch at home" argument because Seattle is an even more extreme pitching environment than Milwaukee. I also think he just isn't as good of a pitcher as Harrison anymore, which makes it easier to just write him off as a poor start away from home anyway. Start him this weekend against the strikeout-prone A's in Seattle this weekend, but I don't think there's any way I could trust him in Sacramento the start after.
Gage Jump isn't happening … yet
Jump is going to be on my sleepers list for 2027. But unfortunately, I don't think he needs to be on your roster right now. I've touted him as a waiver-wire pickup multiple times this season and every single time he has let me down. The stuff is more than good enough, but the command is nowhere close right now. He'll need to spend the offseason focusing on that aspect of his game. Jump has close to a 12% walk rate across Triple-A and the majors this season, but the iffy command also affects his ability to generate strikeouts, as he just can't consistently get the ball where he needs it to go. We've seen several examples of how high the ceiling can be for Jump when he is right, including starts with 11 and nine strikeouts in the past month. But he isn't close enough to a finished product to justify a spot on your roster.
Extra Innings
Walker Jenkins hit his first homer!
Look, I'm sure Jenkins doesn't care how he got his first MLB homer. He's going to remember that moment forever, and he's going to have plenty more to come. But it's worth noting that his first one came Monday against a position player on the mound in a blowout. It counts all the same in the box score, but it's also fair to say we're still waiting for a real one. That being said, Jenkins has struck out just once in his first four games and hasn't looked overwhelmed by real major-league pitching yet, so I suspect it'll come sooner than later.
